Singapore Energy Centre: Science innovation bridging the globe

Tackling the world’s next big energy challenge requires the world’s next big energy thinkers, which is why ExxonMobil is creating a network of advanced research centers around the globe.

In Singapore, that never-ending search for new technologies that offer abundant energy with fewer emissions is unfolding amid that city-state’s own strategy for sustainable development. Today, some of ExxonMobil’s leading scientists helped usher in the newly minted Singapore Energy Centre, which will create new collaboration with local universities and future leaders to help solve those energy challenges.

This is the first ExxonMobil-supported energy center outside of the United States.

“With projected energy demand growth across Asia Pacific, it’s critical that the public and private sectors work together to advance scalable, next-generation energy technologies while reducing the environmental footprint often associated with energy production,” said Vijay Swarup, vice president of research and development at ExxonMobil Engineering and Research Company.

Specifically, the partnership will involve the Nanyang Technological University and National University of Singapore, with ExxonMobil contributing $10 million (S$14 million) over five years.

The scope of the joint scientific research will span several core projects that will help balance the need for more energy with fewer emissions. Students and industry scientists, for example, will look to nature to discover novel materials and designs within bioscience that could result in low-CO2 emitting processes for producing fuels and chemicals.

Other initiatives will include the development of carbon capture and storage technologies and using modeling to reduce water and energy consumption from the industrial sector.

Today, those yet-to-be-developed breakthroughs may start in Singapore, but will quickly spread to an eager, global audience.